Psychedelic Porn Crumpets live at Kentish Town Forum, 2026

It’s a horribly foggy night to be racing across the East of England but an evening of psych rock awaits over at Kentish Town Forum. First up tonight is Norwich based Floral Image, who ease us into the night with some gentle psych rock to begin, a nice calm pace and catchy hooks, gradually building things up, warming the audience for the evening. The drumming is fantastic with a lot of creative flare throughout, paired with a bass player who throws himself around and contorts himself while driving the songs forward, the rhythm section bring a huge grin to my face. There’s a lot of synth thrown into the mix, creating an unusual base for the guitars to ride, the synth player bringing some distorted vocals to sit aside the two guitarists cleaner sound. Not only are Floral Image the ideal band to open proceedings, they also absolutely nail the job of opener – we’re eased in early on but warmed and ready for what’s to come as they leave the stage, after phaser soaked leads bring a sense of bliss. Wonderful stuff.

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On paper Waldo’s Gift are a bold choice as tour support; they’re an incredibly talented band but musically they’re not really similar to Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, a more math rock, proggy experience. The crowd are loving it though, every gap in the music is broken by incredible applause from the room, people in the pit dancing to the infectious but complex rhythms offered up to them. I’m glad that they keep to their promise of creating one improvised track at each show to throw back to how they formed – it’s one of the highlights of the set, a stunning musical moment that exists solely in that moment, never to be repeated. The trio are all top tier musicians; the guitars parts and the way they’re modified with effects is fascinating, the drums are so technically impressive while still, alongside some incredibly solid bass lines, having a massive groove to them.

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I’ve wanted to see Psychedelic Porn Crumpets for a couple of years now but it just hasn’t worked out but, with the buzz in the venue tonight, this feels like the right time to jump in. Before they walk onto the stage Nessun Dorma plays, a tortoise in the middle of the stage with a microphone solely lit by the spotlights, more and more people in the crowd laughing as they realise what’s going on. The band looks excited to be there as they walk on stage, massive grins and guitars in the air. Opening with Salsa Verde the energy gets ramped up instantly – musically it’ll be of no surprise to anyone that Psychedelic Porn Crumpets play psychedelic music but alongside the layer of droning guitars and pounding drums there’s no shortage of wonderful guitar riffs, helped by the presence of three guitarists.

By the time the band get into Mundungus and Lava Lamp Piano the crowd has gone slightly crazy, alongside the crowd surfers the middle of the pic all sit down and start rowing, seemingly guided by one person at the front – it’s totally unprompted from the band, just a crowd organically doing the weirdest possible thing while the band plays. Frontman Jack has a wonderful voice, fitting perfectly with the psych rock they produce, with drawn out lines sang over the more out there sections of songs, like in the middle of Hymn for a Droid. With an encore of Terminus, the Creator, Incubator and Cornflake they’ve given it their all for an hour and a half, the crowd giving their all in return. At one point in the set they mention that the first time they played London was in Blondies – while I imagine this much music in that little room would have been fun there’s no doubt that Kentish Town Forum is the right venue for them, the downstairs in particular is just a hotbed of energy all night. Opening the set with a couple of tracks from last year’s album Pogo Rodeo shows a confidence in the new material but, credit where it’s due, there’s a brilliant mix of material from their whole discography. Every time Psychedelic Porn Crumpets come back to the UK they play bigger venues, not hard to see why more people are getting involved each time and why people keep coming back, they’re a phenomenal live band!

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